As museums grapple with questions of monetary sustainability and relevance whereas working to increase their audiences, extra establishments are experimenting with programming that strikes properly past the crystal tower and white dice to embrace new types of expression and engagement. A type of kinds is music. However what occurs when museums grow to be the venue for a complete competition, or start staging their very own raves with curated lineups?
That’s the case with MoMA PS1, now within the twenty seventh iteration of “Heat Up,” the longest-running music program hosted by a museum. From July by means of the tip of August, DJs and dancers fill the courtyard each Friday night, gathering beneath artfully designed phases in a charged mix of music, viewers participation and up to date creativity.
The courtyard has been on the heart of this system since 1997, when a significant renovation opened up the outside house—one thing few museums in New York can declare. The next yr, in 1998, “Heat Up” debuted as a summer-long dance celebration meant to draw new audiences to MoMA PS1 in Lengthy Island Metropolis. That first version even featured provocative outside sculptures by Gelatin, with the artists themselves concerned within the music choice.
From the beginning, the connection between artists and musicians has been central to this system, as MoMA PS1 curator Kari Rittenbach tells Observer. On the time, Lengthy Island Metropolis had little residential improvement, and throughout from PS1 there was little greater than an empty lot for taxis. That openness created a way of freedom, of having the ability to introduce a world of experimental sound—the sort of power that had pulsed by means of areas like Paradise Storage and different legendary venues that formed the town’s music scene because the Eighties.
“It’s a uncommon sort of house in New York Metropolis for a museum, virtually a full metropolis block,” Rittenbach displays. “That scale created a particular set of situations—a recipe for cultivating an ecosystem that might really maintain artists and musicians.”
In 1999 Philip Johnson—architect and founding father of MoMA’s Division of Structure and Design—created a construction known as Dance Pavilion for “Heat Up,” marking not solely the primary collaboration between PS1 and MoMA but additionally the launch of the annual Younger Architects Program (YAP), which selects an architect every year to design the set up that serves because the dynamic backdrop for the sequence.
In 2025, the set for “Heat Up” was designed by New York Metropolis-based artist and musician Jeffrey Joyal, who created a two-part set up with layered, weathered woodcut prints wheat-pasted onto the DJ sales space that body the efficiency space. At its heart, a sculptural component titled The Jerk (2025)—that includes spinning LED lights that spell out the names of mid-Twentieth-century dance strikes—hovers above the stage as a kinetic, cultural “caller.” This yr’s pavilion attracts from the historical past of DIY graphic manufacturing and hyperlinks present-day collective motion to previous moments of youth-led cultural change.
From its inception, “Heat Up” has served as a significant acknowledgment of experimental music as a type of cultural expression. “For us, it’s about taking sound severely as a cultural type and asking the way it may form the lifetime of the establishment,” says Rittenbach.
This attitude aligns with MoMA PS1’s ethos as the primary museum based by and for artists, devoted to advancing the most recent types of creative expression within the metropolis. “From the start the query has all the time been: how can we make this house for artists? That very same query nonetheless animated me and the group once we had been fascinated with easy methods to deliver this sequence again after the pandemic hiatus,” Rittenbach explains. “Heat Up” was paused throughout the pandemic and solely relaunched in the summertime of 2023, although the museum continued to assist the music neighborhood throughout that interval by means of a curated streaming sequence.
This system is now curated by a group led by Rittenbach, however as she notes, it includes the whole employees because it features as a museum-wide manufacturing. “The logistics, the group of all of it, fall to us—which, as anybody who’s ever put collectively a music occasion is aware of, is a gigantic enterprise,” Rittenbach says. For MoMA PS1, “Heat Up” isn’t merely a public program or advertising and marketing initiative—it’s as central to the annual calendar as any exhibition.
Annually, MoMA PS1 invitations 5 artists or musicians to hitch the rotating group that helps form the lineup. Typically, they’ve beforehand exhibited at PS1 or are a part of present exhibits—figures already embedded within the establishment’s orbit or intently linked to its neighborhood. The core curatorial problem, in accordance with Rittenbach, is figuring out what feels cutting-edge in New York Metropolis proper now. “One of the crucial fascinating methods to method that’s merely to take heed to artists. So whereas there’s lots of thought and analysis that goes into the curatorial facet, a lot of it additionally comes from conversations with artists—asking what’s within the air, what’s rising from the streets, what they’re listening to. These exchanges assist form the path of this system.” Most of the folks they converse with are deeply tied to nightlife scenes or experimental music platforms. “Via these exchanges, we’re in a position to get a way of who feels most fun in the meanwhile—whether or not that’s DJs or rising musicians who’re beginning to generate actual buzz.”
Through the years, “Heat Up” has grow to be some of the enduring and celebrated museum-based music packages within the U.S., identified for championing progressive, underground and various voices. For greater than twenty years, it has featured each legendary and rising performers. Acts have spanned genres—from digital to hip-hop, experimental to pop—with performers together with Honey Dijon, sophie, Richie Hawtin, Arca, Cardi B, lizzo, solange, Jamie Xx, 4 Tet and plenty of others.
“Heat Up” welcomes a mean of 15,000-20,000 attendees every year throughout six occasions. Even the latest session offered out by midday on the day of the present, as confirmed throughout the name. For its ultimate Friday night time, “Heat Up” hosted a lineup that included City Tribe founder DJ Stingray 313 from Berlin, DJ Travella from Kampala-based label Nyege Nyege Tapes in Dar es Salaam, the duo Pure Surprise Magnificence Idea and xexexe/halfpet with Charlot Abhors A Void from New York—a global and avant-garde combine in a single night time that highlighted this system’s world attain.
The museum has additionally grown extra intentional about sustainability—each when it comes to viewers expertise and the labor concerned in producing the occasion. “In one other period, we would have simply saved promoting tickets endlessly, however now we’re extra intentional about capability,” Rittenbach says. “We’re not overpacking the house, so folks can really get pleasure from being there and listening to the music.”
The afternoon-to-evening schedule (4-10 p.m. this yr) permits “Heat Up” to draw a large viewers—from younger folks utilizing it as a prelude to an evening out, to households with youngsters, to youngsters experiencing their first celebration. “Lots of people now attend with their youngsters, and for some teenagers ‘Heat Up’ is usually the very first celebration they ever went to rising up in New York, because you don’t must be 21 to enter.”
This combine introduces a broader public to each the historical past of U.S. music and the brand new sounds rising immediately, advancing a transparent instructional mission whereas deepening appreciation for music as a cultural type.
Nonetheless, whereas this system has confirmed to be a robust instrument for engagement and development, revenues primarily cowl the price of working it. “What I’ll say is that though ‘Heat Up’ is a revenue-generating occasion, the ticket gross sales largely go towards overlaying prices—issues like extra safety, additional employees and prolonged hours,” Rittenbach explains. “In that sense, the earnings helps maintain the sequence itself.”
MoMA PS1 is often free for New York residents, however admission to “Heat Up” is priced comparably to a normal museum ticket and affords a extra expansive expertise. Since its post-pandemic relaunch, ticket holders have additionally gained entry to the exhibitions, providing a extra built-in cultural expertise. “I believe that’s a part of why we’ve had so many sold-out exhibits this yr—folks acknowledge the worth,” Rittenbach says. “For us, it’s essential to not less than cowl the prices so we will commit important sources to a program of this dimension, which actually goes above and past what we sometimes do within the winter season.”
Music at museums globally
Though MoMA PS1’s “Heat Up” is the longest-running museum music program, it’s not alone. For the reason that post-pandemic interval, the Hamburger Bahnhof in Berlin has emerged as a distinguished web site for raving within the museum, notably by means of its summer season sequence “Berlin Beats”—a free, open-air program of weekly DJ units within the museum’s backyard from June to August, with particular classes timed to Berlin Artwork Week and the Berlin Biennale. Curated by Charlotte Knaup and coordinated by Angelika Jaros, the sequence is formed with curatorial rigor and deep analysis, spotlighting a number of the most compelling experimental music voices from world wide.
Final yr’s version drew round 50,000 guests—a significant success when measured by public engagement. Whereas the occasion was not ticketed, it nonetheless generated income not directly by means of on-site avenue meals, drinks and prolonged exhibition hours. Extra importantly, it introduced in new audiences and positioned the museum as an area that the town’s youthful inhabitants actively engages with.
Comparable initiatives have emerged in London. Tate Fashionable and Tate Britain now host late-night summer season packages each Friday and Saturday, with DJs, reside music, performances and different activations animating the Turbine Corridor or the historic rotunda till 9 p.m. For instance, the upcoming “Late at Tate” at Tate Britain on September 5 will open with a reside role-playing recreation efficiency led by artist Wingshan, adopted by a lineup of different performances, poetry readings and zine-making workshops. On the primary stage, Brixton-based Reprezent Radio will showcase the perfect of latest London sound. For these searching for a break from the constructing’s many activations, there can even be a wellness-inspired chill-out house “to reset your senses and recharge.”
The Palais de Tokyo in Paris has equally constructed a status for merging up to date artwork and nightlife, particularly throughout vogue weeks and artwork gala’s. Late-night openings function DJs and immersive installations typically tied to present exhibitions. From its founding, the Palais has positioned itself as a bridge between artwork, nightlife and youth tradition, internet hosting occasions that stretch till midnight and past. DJs, performers and experimental musicians rework the museum’s cavernous concrete halls into areas that resemble golf equipment or underground venues. This summer season, from July 17 to September 4, 2025, Palais de Tokyo is providing free admission each Thursday night, with the museum open till midnight.
Music, greater than every other artwork type, has a singular capability to speak throughout cultural and linguistic boundaries. On the similar time, collective dancing as ritual has threaded its method from humanity’s earliest civilizations to immediately’s museum raves as a result of it fulfills a fundamental human want: to really feel like a part of one thing bigger than oneself.
Neuroscience affirms what historic cultures already knew: synchronized motion releases endorphins, fosters empathy and builds belief. That’s why raving in museums needn’t really feel like an intrusion however quite a return to ritual foundations—as establishments as soon as identified for elitist silence reactivate one among humanity’s oldest methods for constructing neighborhood. With conventional third areas in decline and youthful generations much less anchored to membership tradition, museums are arguably properly positioned to function platforms for these collective rituals—areas the place the evolving relationship between artwork and music will be explored and skilled in actual time.
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